Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I purchased the Nikon L120 about a month ago in preparation for a trip we were taking to California. Although I was impressed by several of the features I read about, such as the extended zoom and pseudo-dslr design, I still had some concerns about a couple of features such as the complaints about focusing and lack of manual controls. After shooting about 200 pictures, I am happy to report that I will be keeping the camera. I'll address my concerns about the reported concerns others expressed. First was the concern over focus. At one point, the camera was having trouble focusing on a shot of the sea and horizon. Everything was blurry and only items within 20-30 ft. would be in focus. I tried several different modes, including landscape and beach, but it did not cure the problem. At that point, I decided to just turn it off and turn it back on and that solved the problem. There must be some issue with the algorithms which pick certain items to focus, but the old "off and on" trick fixed it and I had no other problems, even under similar circumstances. The other issue was of the lack of manual modes. Except for the focus issue, I had no problems with exposure under any conditions, inside, outside, bright lights, dim, flash, portraits, etc. Now onto the good things. Battery life is very good. I took over 200 pictures with regular alkaline batteries. Although I had lithium batteries ready to go, it has not been necessary to use them. With battery life that good and the fact that it uses 4 AA batteries, I don't think I"ll go to the expense of lithium batteries. I really like the form factor of the camera. The bulge on the right side is very handy and you can hold it securely with only a couple of fingers. Taking the lense cap on and off is annoying, especially when you forget to take it off after you power it up. However, it's no more annoying than it was in the old days of analog cameras. Also with the plain old lense cap, there are no concerns with sand jamming up exterior shutters. The camera is too large to fit in your shirt pocket but not too big to fit in a coat pocket or purse/backpack. I think it's an acceptable compromise on size. Zoom is excellent. Seals which were several hundred yards away looked like we were right on top of them. I did not experience any shutter lag, although I have not used the camera in burst or sports mode yet. Video mode is about what you would expect for a hand held camera. OK, not great, but works well enough for that quick video when you need more than a still camera. To sum it up, I like the battery life, picture quality, good assortment of modes, adequate flash range and fantastic zoom. The camera definitely has a few quirks but ones I decided I can live with. I give it a solid 9 out of 10.